Balafon at the Cinquantenaire

I took this photo at Peace Corps Guinea's 50th Anniversary celebration in Conakry, Guinea, on April 21, 2011. The performers are from a new primary school established by UNICEF in Dubreka to maintain the cultural traditions of music, dance & performance dress. Six months earlier, I'd visited the school when the students were just beginning to learn singing & drumming. Within that short period of time, they had become professional enough to perform publicly. This photo shows one of the students playing the balafon, a xylophone-like instrument that resonates with gourds as a sounding box.